“We Equally Share Tasks, but…” Justifications for the Unequal Gender Distribution of Housework among Highly Educated Spanish Couples

Mireia Almirall Llambrich , Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics
Pau Miret, Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics
Xiana Bueno García, School of Public Health, Indiana University
Joan GARCIA-ROMAN, Centre for Demographic Studies

Although gender gap in the time spent on housework has significantly decreased in recent decades, women continue to spend more time on domestic work than men. Women’s massive incorporation into labour market and greater access to higher education are behind the changes occurred, that has been described as “gender revolution”. But the persistence of inequalities indicates that the revolution is stalled. With this study, we aim to answer the question of why women continue to be the main responsible partner for domestic work and how the doing gender perspective might continue to be a valid framework to explain persistent gendered patterns. We draw on the sample of 39 partnered men and women who were interviewed in two moments (2012 and 2019) in Spain, thus, we analyse a total of 78 interviews. The longitudinal dimension of the data represents a unique opportunity to effectively assess how the participants’ housework-related reasoning and decision-making processes have remained or evolved over time and how that might be linked to possible life changes (i.e. employment situation, parity). Preliminary analysis of the interviews suggests that, in general, a significant number of participants perceive that they share domestic tasks equally with their partners, although it is not the result of a formal planification of tasks, but rather to an on-the-way accommodation based on daily concurrent circumstances. The availability of time, the outsourcing of domestic tasks to balance work and family, and the difference standards of doing tasks are some of the topics that emerges from the interviews.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 42. Gender, Households and Housework